Events: Sunday, June 22, 2014

We’re guessing that, like most people, you’re a sucker for the extravagantly elegant parties depicted in last year’s film version of The Great Gatsby. Now here’s your chance to get dressed up and attend one for yourself! Spadina Museum is hosting a Gatsby Garden Party, complete with music from the Maple Leaf Champion Jug Band, dance performances by the Sugar Shakers, and a ukelele jam, because why not?

What’s the buzz in Toronto this weekend? Urban Beekeeping, of course! (Sorry.) Learn about the importance of bees with Jozef Winter—resident beekeeper at Evergreen Brick Works—as he leads a tutorial on hosting a hive in your own backyard.

If The Forbidden City: Inside the Court of China’s Emperors has a mascot, it’s Emperor Yongzheng. The image of the 18th-century Chinese ruler dominates the promotional material of the exhibition, which is one of the centrepieces of the Royal Ontario Museum’s centennial year. His portrait certainly has visual appeal, but Yongzheng is also a figure associated with surprising elements of life within the former imperial palace.

“The greatest art always returns you to the vulnerabilities of the human situation.” – Francis Bacon

“In the human figure one can express more completely one’s feelings about the world than in any other way.” – Henry Moore

These quotations, which welcome visitors to “Francis Bacon and Henry Moore: Terror and Beauty,” immediately establish the exhibition’s tone and focus. Each artist’s distortions of the human figure, shaped by their wartime experiences, capture the vulnerability of our mortal forms.

Returning for its 20th year, NXNE is celebrating the milestone by offering audiences another vast selection of events to sift through and enjoy over the course of nine days. While music may still be its focal point, the festival has developed over the years into a mirror image of SXSW—a multidisciplinary arts extravaganza that people look forward to all through the winter as if it were a light at the end of a dark and dreary tunnel. After enduring an especially long and brutal stretch of cold weather this year, it will feel especially rewarding to slap on a wristband and squeeze every ounce of pleasure out of the 2014 lineup.

Anyone seeking proof that all it takes for a radical to become part of the establishment is a little bit of endurance need only look to “Skin Flicks,” TIFF Cinematheque’s retrospective of the films of Toronto zine impresario, radical, occasional pornographer, and queercore filmmaker Bruce LaBruce.

A farm boy who left his rural digs for a more urban life in Toronto in the mid-‘80s, LaBruce first turned heads on the scene with his publication (along with partner and Fifth Column frontwoman G.B. Jones) of the seminal queer punk zine J.D.s, which distinguished itself from punk culture through its queer vision, and from mainstream LGBT culture through its aggressive DIY aesthetic and radical politics. From that fertile underground world came the first of LaBruce’s experimental Super 8 shorts, including Boy, Girl—ground zero for later thematic obsessions such as neo-skinheads and surveillance.

On June 19, the Toronto Jazz Festival will once again descend upon Nathan Phillips Square and clubs and concert halls all over the city. Friday night will feature a free concert at Nathan Phillips Square, presented in partnership with WorldPride, with sets by Melissa Etheridge and Deborah Cox. There will also be a huge fireworks display and the raising of the rainbow flag—it’s bound to be a real party. There are lots of big names at the fest this year, including Chaka Kahn, Bobby McFerrin, and Earth, Wind & Fire. Here’s our rundown of some of the other shows worth checking out.

For ten days this June, Toronto will welcome the world to our city—a city that’ll be bursting with queer-positive cultural events, including musical performances by the likes of Tegan & Sara, special theatrical presentations by Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and many more, visual art exhibitions, parties, and of course, the various annual Pride parades. All the official events are listed on the World Pride 2014 website (though we’ll also be keeping our eyes open for a few unofficial events we think readers might appreciate).

Every part of our city will be drenched in WorldPride this summer, including the TIFF Bell Lightbox. Bent Lens: Pride on Screen comprises nearly two months of screenings, exhibits, and speaking engagements that reflect the broadness of our LGBT community. Check out films under the stars in David Pecaut Square, take in a conversation with Laverne Cox of Orange is the New Black, and much more.

CORRECTION: June 16, 2014, 3:50 PM This post originally stated that the outdoor screenings of Bent Lens will focus on Derek Jarman and Bruce LaBruce, but that is not the case.

Members of Kaha:wi Dance Theatre will perform The Honouring. Photo by David Hou.

Fort York National Historic Site (250 Fort York Boulevard)

10 a.m.

A three-day festival of music, dance, theatre, and more, the Indigenous Arts Festival takes place this weekend at Fort York, hosted by the Mississaugas of New Credit. The performances include a workshop presentation of Article 11’s Ministry of Grace, by playwright Tara Beagan; The Honouring, by Kaha:wi Dance Theatre; and a concert by Kinnie Starr.

Many of the panels at this three-day symposium on the topic of Urban Transformations along St. Clair Avenue are invite-only, but there are some public highlights too, including an opening-night keynote talk by Ed Keenan, senior editor at The Grid and author of Some Great Idea. There’s also a public walk on Sunday, June 22, that will look at St. Clair West’s historical significance.

First things first: the Tarragon Theatre mainspace is now licensed. That means that during its current production, The God That Comes, starring Hawksley Workman—which has set up the space like a dark, sultry 1930s cabaret with crystal chandeliers, long white tablecloths, and deep crimson curtains—you can sip a glass of red while one of Canada’s best rockers uses his beautiful voice to scream into your face.

Fans of oddball British humour—rejoice! The Lower Ossington Theatre has brought the genius of Monty Python’s Eric Idle to Toronto with their rendition of Spamalot. Watch as flying cows, killer rabbits, and all sorts of bizarre elements come together to tell a twisted version of the legendary story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

Brehnan McKibbon, Bejamin Blais, and Jakob Ehman are the Chiavetti Brothers in Cockfight. Photo by Zaiden.

The Storefront Theatre (955 Bloor Street West)

8 p.m.

The latest work by prolific playwright Kat Sandler, who generates clever content for indie-company-on-the-rise Theatre Brouhaha, Cockfight follows an unlikely attempt by three foster brothers to obtain a rooster in order to make their fortune in underground cockfighting matches.

Sandler—named one of our “local ladies who make us laugh” in 2013—has often applied her gift for comic dialogue to tragic stories, and in her latest play, the characters are more desperate and downtrodden than ever. This time around, Sandler is also directing, and she has a deft touch for showing off her protagonists’ dramatic strengths—though her supporting character and the lead-up to the brothers’ climactic confrontations are not as well developed.